


turn up the lights

by tosca1390



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-21
Updated: 2012-05-21
Packaged: 2017-11-05 18:59:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/409934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tosca1390/pseuds/tosca1390
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It comes down to that she doesn’t want the distractions that Ichigo Kurosaki promises. He won’t stop looking at her, though.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	turn up the lights

*

The library at school is quiet. The nights leave just students who are dedicated and those who don’t want to go home to the stacks and desks. 

She is both, Rukia supposes. 

“He’s looking again.”

“Shhh,” Rukia murmurs, head bent over her math textbook. 

Across the table from her, Nanao presses her sneaker-covered toe to Rukia’s foot. “I’m not kidding.”

Sighing, Rukia straightens up into a stretch. She tilts her head to the side, glancing out of the corner of her eye. Nanao’s right; he is watching, leaning back in his chair. A book lays open in front of him on the table two rows away from them, but he doesn’t pay it any mind. His dark eyes crinkle at the corners as she catches his gaze. 

“Ah,” she murmurs, finishing her stretch and curving back over her notes. Ink sinks under her nails and onto her fingertips as she picks up her favorite pen. “Well, he can look.”

Nanao fixes her with a hard look. “Do you _want_ him to look?”

“I don’t want anything except to pass this math test next week,” Rukia retorts, warmth rising on the back of her neck. “But I can’t stop him from looking.”

“You are incredibly naïve sometimes,” Nanao murmurs, adjusting the rest of her glasses on her nose. 

“I don’t think that’s fair at all,” Rukia hisses under her breath. 

Nanao smiles. Dark straight hair falls out of the bun at the nape of her neck, across her throat. “Kurosaki doesn’t just stop with a look. You know that.”

Her pen shifts and skids across the paper as Rukia tucks her hair behind one ear. Her skirt shifts and rises at her knees. “And I don’t deal with entitled little boys. So, we’re even,” she says firmly. 

“Entitled little boys, huh?”

A flush crawls up the nape of her neck. Rukia tilts her head up, meeting Kurosaki’s eyes just as Nanao makes a strangled little sound. His gaze is even, deep amber and amused. She wets her lips, tapping the end of her pen on her notebook. 

“Entitled little boys?” he repeats, resting the heels of his hands on the edge of their table. He always looks poised for a fight, this Kurosaki boy. 

Rukia straightens her back, raising an eyebrow. “Spying on other people’s conversations is rude.”

“I make it my business to know what people talk about in this school,” he drawls, starkly bright hair falling across his brow. 

“Do you also make it a habit of intimidating fellow students?” she asks dryly. 

Then he smiles, cool and lazy. “This isn’t intimidation, Rukia-chan,” he says. The endearment is too close; she flushes, her fingertips tightening around her pen. 

“So this is how you talk to the students you like?” Nanao says at last, voice clipped. 

Kurosaki glances between the two of them. His eyes linger on Rukia again. Then he straightens, and tucks his hands into his jacket pockets. “Maybe,” he says with a shrug, bowing his head briefly before he moves down the slim path between the tables and the bookcases. 

“Jesus,” Nanao whistles. 

Rukia watches his retreating back, biting the inside of her lip. It feels like another complication has landed in her lap in the shape of his shoulders and his mouth. 

She doesn’t know how she feels about it. 

*

Rukia’s life is one of insularity, of singularity. It always has been, up until now. 

Her sister married well and died too young, leaving a very young Rukia in the hands of a restrained older brother with money and too much responsibility to have time to raise a young girl. With parents gone and no other relatives, he was all she had, though. Byakuya did the best he could, shuffling her between the best nannies and then the best schools until she was able to take care of herself. 

Now, in her second year of university in Tokyo, she keeps to herself. She has few friends after years of social awkwardness and being known as the Kuchiki girl, the _adopted_ heir to a business empire she can’t begin to fathom. She keeps to the things that bring her pleasure; school work, judo, her part-time work as a tutor. It’s enough for now, enough to keep her busy and moving forward. She has no need to be distracted by men and _boys_ and girls who stare because a boy stares – 

Really, it comes down to that she doesn’t want the distractions that Ichigo Kurosaki promises. 

He won’t stop looking at her, though.

*

It starts when they have a class together, of course. Shakespeare is the course of study; appropriate, since she is an English literature focus – she had to choose something, so she chose that. She likes to read, after all. 

For the first two weeks of class, he sits behind her and doesn’t say a word. The rumors about him spread thick and fast; he’s an assassin, he’s a politician’s son, he’s Yakuza, he’s a delinquent. He takes no time to correct any of the rumors; he comes to class with his tall and silent friends flanking him, and he leaves the same way, leaving a bunch of staring boys and fawning girls in his wake. 

Rukia doesn’t have time for any of it, really. Until the third week. 

On Tuesday, she feels a tap on her shoulder. 

“Did you read the play?” Kurosaki asks near her ear. His breath shifts and stirs the loose hair at her throat. 

“Of course I read the play,” she murmurs as the teacher drones on in the front of the classroom. She keeps her eyes forward, even as she feels the reverberation of his laugh on her skin. 

“Did you like it?”

“Romeo and Juliet is an acquired taste at this age,” she retorts under her breath. 

“Not a romantic, Rukia?” he murmurs. 

She flushes, leaning over her notes. “No, I’m not,” she says flatly. 

Kurosaki hums then. A hand passes over her shoulders briefly, his knuckles warm against the bare skin of her neck. A shiver curls through her; she regrets pulling her hair up, now. “Good,” he says at last, and doesn’t speak again for the rest of the class. 

*

This is how it starts, with small conversations under the rise and hum of the class. Then, he begins carrying her books out from class into the hallways and out into the sidewalks and courtyards. His friends, whose names she never catches, hang back far enough for some privacy, close enough for her to constantly be aware of them. 

Girls stare; boys stare. It feels concentrated and strange in a way she passed by in high school. They are all adults, she thinks crossly when he takes her books from her for the fourth week in a row and walks her to her bus stop; there is no reason to be petty, to be jealous. 

“Why are you doing this?” she asks on this particular day. It’s cooler than usual for spring, but the sun is warm on her shoulders, if weak, and the trees still keep their buds. 

The library incident is a week past them; they have yet to speak of it. When she thinks of it, she flushes, and sighs; he’s making things a mess, a knot of complications she’s never wanted. 

Kurosaki glances down at her, a smirk curling his mouth. “I think you’re interesting,” he says after a moment, and it’s the last thing she expects to come out of his mouth. 

“Interesting?” she repeats after a moment, stopping at the edge of the sidewalk. The breeze curls at the hem of her skirt. He still has her books, tucked close to his chest. His own satchel is slung over his shoulders, and it all must be too heavy together. 

He smiles slightly, leaning over her. “Yeah. Interesting. You hardly ever talk in class, but when you do you’re always on the mark. You don’t take shit from anyone. You’re apparently a judo expert – you’re self-made,” he says. 

The color rises on her cheeks. He knows too much, more than she’s allowed in these small moments together; it unsettles her. “I’m not a project to be observed,” she says flatly, reaching out for her books. 

“That’s not what I meant,” he exclaims, shaking his head. He doesn’t give her books back. “You’re different.”

“You’re making me different, you mean,” she retorts. Some of their university classmates pass them on the sidewalk, watching her, their gazes judging her. She could really care less, except it is attention; it’s the last thing she needs. “Stop it.”

He watches her quietly for a moment; she can see the swallow of his throat. She blinks against the weak sunlight, face flushed. 

“Just give me a little more time, Rukia,” he murmurs at last, handing her the books. “I think you might like me.”

Just like that, he turns and walks away, hands shoved into his jacket pockets. Again she watches as his back retreats, alone in the sidewalk. It’s too strange, as if she’s missed some sort of piece of the puzzle. And yet, she thinks, as the bus pulls up alongside her and she gets on, finding a seat. And yet. 

*

“Kuchiki-san?”

Rukia looks up from her bento box, into the kind open face of Inoue-san, a girl a year older than her who she has math with three times a week. In the pale spring sunlight she is a pretty picture, long hair settling in the breeze at her waist, her eyes wide and gentle. Sitting next to her at the base of the tree, Nanao curls a hand around her wrist. 

“Inoue-san,” Rukia says pleasantly after a moment, nerves plucking at her fingertips. 

Inoue smiles, sitting down in the grass across from her. “I’m sorry about you and Kurosaki-kun.”

Immediately Rukia sits up, tucking her knees closer under her skirt. “Sorry about what?” she asks, setting her half-eaten lunch aside. 

“That you broke up,” Inoue says gently. 

Next to her, Nanao makes a small little noise of surprise. Rukia shoots a look at her before she passes a hand over her face, shaking her head. “Broke up?”

“Oh, yes. I was hoping you would do well together, you know – he and I dated in high school, but those thing never work out, really,” Inoue says easily, patting Rukia’s knee. “You seem just like what he would need, but I suppose –“

“We were never together,” Rukia blurts out, a flush curling at her throat. 

Now Nanao laughs, a soft sort of chuckle low in her throat. Confusion flutters across Inoue’s face, her brow furrowed. “Oh. I’m sorry. I just assumed – I’m so sorry, Kuchiki-san,” she murmurs. 

“What was that?” Rukia asks Nanao once Inoue has bowed and left them alone with their books and their bento boxes. “What _was_ that?”

Nanao shakes her head. “You knew what everyone thought.”

“There was nothing to think!” she exclaims, flushing. Yes, since their awkward moment on the sidewalk, Kurosaki had been somewhat cool to her, but he still carried her books out to the front doors of the building. Nothing intrinsically has changed in the makeup of their interactions; still she feels the guilt there, of not trying hard enough. “He was not my boyfriend!”

“Everyone thought he was, though. You really should pay more attention to people,” Nanao murmurs. 

Rukia shakes her head and presses the lid onto her bento box, face flushed. “I don’t want to pay more attention. I don’t want any attention at all,” she murmurs, passing a hand through her loose hair. 

“With Kurosaki, that’s not an option,” Nanao says with a slight little smile. 

Sliding her satchel over her shoulder, Rukia waits for Nanao to gather her books, looking out across the small courtyard. Still, they stare; she can’t place it all together, what makes her different from any of the other girls fawning after him. 

She doesn’t like not having the answers.

*

Another night, another evening spent in the company of the library. 

Tonight, she is alone. Nanao is on a date with one of the fellow instructors at the judo dojo they frequent. Rukia doesn’t mind in the least; Shunsui has been chasing Nanao for months now, and it promises for more entertainment, at least. 

Her Shakespeare text sits open at her left elbow, ignored as she pours over her math review sheets. The lights are too dim, and she has to squint, following the complicated formulas across the thin sheets of paper with the tip of her pencil. 

“I’m good at math, you know.”

She looks up from her notes just as Kurosaki slides into the chair across from her, his arm stretching across the back of the chair. There’s a dark bruise at his jawline she hadn’t seen in class yesterday; this close to him, she can see the small gold hoop sitting at his right earlobe. _Yakuza_ , she thinks unbidden; warnings from Nanao and others filter through her mind. 

“Congratulations,” she says at last, setting her pencil down. 

He shrugs, eyes very gold in the dim light. “I’m just saying, if you want help.”

Sighing, she leans back in her chair. “Your ex-girlfriend talked to me a few days ago.”

“Inoue?” he asks. 

“Yes. She thought we were dating,” she says flatly. 

His mouth twists into something of an amused scowl. “She should mind her own business and stop talking to my sisters,” he mutters. 

“Why would she think we were dating?” she asks, drumming her fingers on the smooth wood of the table. 

Tilting his head, he smiles slightly. “What did you think I was doing?”

She takes a deep breath, steadying herself. The smell of books and paper lingers in her nose, a comfort. “I really don’t know.”

“I was courting you,” he says with a laugh. 

“You were doing a terrible job,” she retorts, a flush rising high on her throat. “You didn’t say anything!”

“I don’t say things,” he snaps back, shaking his head. “I’m a man of action.”

She rolls her eyes. “Oh good _god_ ,” she mutters. 

Suddenly his hand is over hers, covering it warmly. She stills and looks at him, teeth sinking into the inside of her lip. 

His fingers slide between hers, gentle and callused against her skin. “Do you want to date me?” he asks, low and quiet.

The blush is too warm on her cheeks. She ducks her head for a moment. Her hair falls and cuts against her cheeks, soft at her throat. “I don’t really know you, Ichigo,” she says after a beat. “You know so much, and you’re still – “

“What do you want to know?” he cuts in softly. Underneath the table his foot presses against hers. 

Her gaze lifts to meet his. She swallows, a sudden lump at the base of her throat. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” he repeats, face settled into serious lines. “What do you want to know?”

*

In the library, and as he walks her back to her empty studio apartment, he tells her everything she asks after. 

There are some rumors that are true; he is the heir to a Yakuza group, but he’s also interested in medicine. He has two younger sisters that live back in Karakura Town with his father and the majority of the men under their control. The men that follow him around during class are two of his bodyguards, but there are more at his Tokyo house. He decided to come to university because he was bored, and he wanted a taste of normalcy that high school never brought him. 

“And how is that working out for you?” she asks dryly as they walk through the springtime darkness. He has her hand tucked into his elbow and her satchel slung over his shoulder. 

He glares at her, sighing. “Eh, well. Reputations precede me, I guess.”

“It doesn’t help that you’re absolutely terrifying to all of the other students,” she says, amused. 

“Except you,” he says with a smirk. 

She shrugs. “I’m not easily scared.”

“That’s good,” he murmurs as they turn the corner. Her apartment building looms over them; spots of light from other apartment windows speckle the façade. “Especially if you’re with me.”

“Are we going to talk about this now?” she asks, touching his bruised jaw. 

He catches her hand against his cheek, pressing it there. Their feet settle; they still in the middle of the sidewalk, under a tree just blooming with leaves. “Yeah. That’s a thing that happens sometimes,” he murmurs. 

“Why?” she murmurs, glad for the darkness. She can feel the rise of a blush on her cheeks. 

Leaning over her, he smiles. “I’m the leader of a gang, Rukia. Fights happen.”

Her fingers curl against his jaw. “I can take care of myself,” she says firmly. 

“I know,” he says. 

The air thickens between them, a heady sort of heaviness in her lungs. She takes a step back, the press of the tree trunk against her spine sharp. He follows, his hand turning hers and sliding their fingers together. His eyes are very dark, and soft. 

“You still haven’t really asked,” she says after a moment. The weight of the evening, of the confirmations and the acceptances she’s gleaned from him, it’s all settling on her now. She thinks she should be running from him; she finds she doesn’t want to. 

Ichigo’s mouth curls as he leans over her. She can feel the press of his knee against her thigh. “Actions, Rukia. Remember?”

She tips her mouth up, letting it graze his. “I remember.”

He kisses her in earnest then, his mouth hard and warm over hers. Their hands settle between their chests, still joined. She leans back against the tree and shuts her eyes. Her mouth opens under his and she sighs against the press of his tongue, his teeth. 

“You are going to be trouble,” she breathes against his mouth. 

He laughs. He doesn’t deny it.

*

Rukia is the last one out of the dojo, always. 

“I’ll wait,” Nanao offers as she lingers near the doors, bag slung around her shoulders. 

Fingers plaiting her hair into a thick braid, Rukia shakes her head. Through the windows she can see Shunsui with his motorcycle waiting. “Go, go. I’m fine,” she says with a slight smile. 

“Waiting for Kurosaki-san?” Nanao teases, tucking her hair back. 

“No,” Rukia murmurs. “Besides, my boyfriend isn’t waiting for me like a lost puppy outside.”

Nanao flushes even in the dim room but nods, and leaves her alone after one last goodbye. She listens for the rise and fall of their greeting, the smack of Nanao’s hand against Shunsui’s shoulder, the rumble of his motorcycle. He’s good for her, Rukia thinks; dedicated and shameless in his affection for her. 

The streets are dark as Rukia locks up, her bag slung over her shoulders. Spring is here, the nights warmer now; she likes the walk home from the dojo in this weather. It doesn’t feel as long as it should. Ichigo worries and snaps when he finds out she’s walking home alone at night, but she shuts him up easily enough; she’s learning how to handle him, with words and mouths and hands. 

Besides, what she said before remains true; she has always been able to take care of herself. 

The streets are eerily quiet as she turns the corner, a few blocks from her apartment. There are few cars, even for the middle of the week. The skin prickles at the back of her neck, nerves tingling in her fingertips. She adjusts the rest of her strap across her shoulder, listening. There are footsteps behind her, heavy; she quickens her own, and yes, they quicken too. She curls her hand into a fist, thumb tucked safely inward. 

When the first hand wraps around her shoulder and the arm slams across her belly, she is ready. Her elbow digs back hard into a patch of ribs and hard muscle as she drops all her weight onto the arm across her stomach. The momentum pitches her forward as well as her assailant; they both tumble to the ground. She is up and running immediately, pressing through the sharp scrap and ache on her knees and elbows. Her bag she tosses back behind her as a lost cause, hitting one of them directly. The footsteps, there are more of them behind her, and she can hear them echoing in her ears, loud against the roar of blood in her ears. 

She sweeps and skids around the corner, sprinting down the street towards her apartment building. A dark sedan waits outside the building; bile rises in her throat, but then she sees the tall man leaning against the car. He is in a sleek dark suit but his hair is that strange stark orange, reflecting in the dim streetlights; it’s Ichigo, waiting for her. 

He looks up just as she calls out to him, breathless. His face twists and darkens even at a distance, and he brings a sharp fist down onto the roof of the car. 

The movement of his two men – Ishida, and Sado, she thinks – barely registers. Ichigo has his hands at her shoulders in an instant, pulling her against the car. He’s warm and well-dressed, the suit hanging well off his limbs. She curls her fingers into his jacket lapels; they tremble with the movement. 

“What happened?” he growls, his mouth low near her ear. 

“I’m _fine_ –“ she grits out, jaw tightening. 

“I know you’re fine, that’s not what I asked,” he retorts, passing his hands through her hair, cupping her face. 

She looks up at him, shaking her head. “I don’t know – it was a guy, or two – I’m _fine_ ,” she repeats. 

Ichigo finally cracks a smile, leaning over her as she settles heavily against the car. “Yeah. You’re always fine.”

It’s later, when she’s sitting on her couch in her sparse apartment and he’s kneeling in front of her, cleaning her skinned knees, that she can finally ask. 

“So it was me. They were after me,” she says flatly. 

Ichigo doesn’t look up from her knees, swiping antiseptic-soaked cotton across the scrapes. He feels too large for her small apartment, too special; his suit stands out against the simplicity of her life. The jacket is draped over her shoulders, his shirt unbuttoned at the collar. 

“Yeah, they were,” he says evenly after a moment. The men, three of them, were hauled off by Ichigo’s men to she doesn’t know where. Ichigo remains to tend to her, to stay, she thinks; she can help but flush at the thought. 

Wetting her lips, she reaches out to slide her fingers through his hair. “Because of you?”

Then he looks up, his hands falling to the curve of her knees. His fingers slide under the hem of her skirt to the warm skin of her thighs. She bites the inside of her lip, keeping his gaze. 

“Yeah. Because of me,” he says. 

Rukia leans in, her forehead resting to his. “You can tell me these things,” she says quietly, face flushing. “I’m not afraid of it.”

His fingers dig into her thighs, his mouth tipping forward to catch hers. “Maybe you should be,” he murmurs. 

She curls her fingers through his hair, tugging him up and over her onto the couch. “Not a chance,” she says, biting at his lip. 

There are still secrets to ply out. But there’s something strangely easy in how she can open to him, how he opens with her; there are bruises and moments and guns and struggles, but in the middle of all of that there are study sessions and coming to her judo matches and picking her up from a tutoring session. It’s a strange balance, but she wants to make it work; it’s a distraction worth keeping around, no matter the trials. 

“I should go,” he breathes against the thin skin of her throat, his hands sliding over her skirt. 

She shakes her head, her fingers tripping over the buttons of his starched shirt. “Stay,” she murmurs, biting her lip. 

He lifts his head to look at him, face flushed and hair askew. Mouth curling, he leans in and kisses her, pressing her back into the couch. “Are you sure?”

“I’m always sure,” she retorts, quieting him with a kiss, long and slow and open. 

Here, they can take care of each other. 

*

School ends for the summer break, and with the break, a new trial arrives. 

Rukia waits patiently in the wide airy space of Ichigo’s bedroom at his house – which, honestly, is more of a mansion with an extremely high-tech security system and twenty men of various breadths and widths patrolling the borders. She loosens the braid at her throat, sighing. Summer has hit Tokyo with a vengeance, and she’s already longing for winter, for the taste of snow and ice on her tongue. Sweat creeps down her spine, a combination of heat and nerves. 

“You are supposed to warn me before you come over,” Ichigo mutters as he steps into his room, sliding the door shut hard behind him. “The guys get anxious when they don’t know everything.”

“It was an emergency,” she says with a shrug, rising from his bed. 

Ichigo passes a hand through his hair, glaring at her. “What kind of emergency? Did someone attack you?” 

She shakes her head, the nerves bubbling over in her stomach. “Come here,” she says after a moment, her fingers playing at the ends of her braid. 

His mouth curls into a smirk. “Ah. _That_ kind of emergency?” he teases. His arm slides around her waist, pulling her close. He’s too warm against her, the summer air thick on her bare skin. 

“You’re an idiot,” she murmurs, rising up to kiss him. His mouth presses and slides over hers as her teeth sink into his bottom lip. There are words strangling themselves in her throat, but she can’t press them out yet, not yet. 

Eventually, they end up on the floor of his room, a mess of sweat and mouths and hands. 

“You really shouldn’t sneak around here,” he breathes against her throat. 

Rukia wets her lips and pushes back against him. The wood floor of his bedroom is cool against her back, through the thin shift of her dress. It’s cool in here, a relief from the press and thick of a Tokyo summer. 

“Your friends like me. They call me little sister,” she teases. 

Ichigo smiles against her skin, a hand lazy at her wrists. He pins them back over her head. She could kick him off, if she wanted; she has before. But there’s an element of this that she likes, the feel of someone else’s weight on hers, the imagined release of control. She is tightly wound up, she knows; it’s a moment to breathe, to let someone make a choice. 

“They’re not my friends. They’re my men,” he murmurs, his free hand warm and broad at the hem of her skirt. He lays atop her, hips settled between her thighs; it’s brash and bold, but she can’t be shy, not with him. “There’s a difference.”

Her mouth curls a little as his hair grazes her chin, his lips moving over her throat. “And what am I?” she asks, playful. 

He lifts his head and looks at her, a sharp sort of glint to his dark eyes. The smile splitting his mouth is cheeky and still dangerous. He is young and too old for his age at the same time, the weight of his responsibilities heavy on his shoulders. 

“You’re Rukia,” he says after a moment, wetting his lips. His palm slides warm and slightly damp over her thigh. “You’re Rukia, and you’re mine.”

The flush is heavy on her throat, rising over the low neck of her dress. She moves her wrists from his grip reaching up to frame his face with her hands. “That’s such a boy thing to say,” she says with a soft laugh, even as the warmth uncoils in her middle. 

He leans in and presses his mouth to hers, his hand resting on her hair. There’s the press and shift of his other hand over her thigh, his fingertips finding the crease between her hip and thigh. “You didn’t say it wasn’t true.”

“Who am I to fight with you, Kurosaki-sama?” she teases. 

“You’d be you,” he murmurs against her mouth. 

She shuts her eyes, tracing the line of a scar across his jaw, the cool press of the earring in his right ear. “You, of course, mean I’m yours in the sense that I’m still free to make my own choices and have my own life.”

He grins against her mouth. “Of course.”

“Then – then will you do something for me?” she asks at last, mouth soft against his. 

His fingers curl through her hair, loosening it from her braid. She opens her eyes, watching him. 

“Anything,” he says quietly, eyes dark amber in the summer sunshine. 

She bites at her lip, sliding her fingers over his mouth. “My brother is coming to visit. He does this every summer. I want you to meet him,” she says.

His eyes widen, his teeth grazing her fingertips. “Huh. Really.”

“Yes, _really_ ,” she says crossly.

Fingers drawing against the inside of her thigh, he leans in and kisses her lightly. “Then I will. Do I have to be nice?” he drawls.

“Nice enough for you,” she says, shaking her head. He and her brother will hate each other, but it’s the thought that counts.

“That I can do,” he murmurs before he kisses her again, hard and deep and slow. His tongue slides over her lips as his fingers trail warmly between her thighs. She sighs into his mouth and arches into his touch, smiling. 

Good or bad; life is a grey area into itself. She doesn’t care that the hand on her thigh is callused from fights, that she has seen blood flecked on his clothes, both his and other’s. There are choices and moralities and then there’s _living_. She’s ready for it. 

*


End file.
